


The Prince Lex

by gardnerhill



Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Princess Bride Fusion, Crack, Happy Clark Kent/Lex Luthor, Inspired by Princess Bride, M/M, The Princess Bride References, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 12:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15995318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: The first three seasons of SMALLVILLE, a la "The Princess Bride."





	The Prince Lex

"Emily honey, Grandma's here to see you!"

 

"Mom, she's gonna pinch my cheek again."

 

"Oh, she won't do that!"

 

"Mom, Grandma _always_ pinches my cheek."

 

"Well, hey! I heard someone had a cold!"

 

"We're in here, Mom!"

 

"And how's my favorite granddaughter today? Ooh, chubby cheeks!"

 

"Mpph!"

 

"Right, I'll just leave you two alone, I have to get to work. Thanks a million, Mom, you're a lifesaver."

 

"Quite all right, Cath, we'll have a fine time. Goodbye! ...Well, now, let's see. Ah, reading comic books. Smart girl! Best way to spend the day in bed sick. What are you reading?"

 

"STRANGERS IN PARADISE."

 

"Good choice. Two girls who love each other, their friends, their adventures. I got your mother started on those when she was a girl, too. Now, Emily, have you ever read SUPERMAN?"

 

"No way, Grandma. Superman's _boring_. Boys like that stuff -- a dumb jock in tights flying around punching planets."

 

"Well, certainly the way some of those comics are written, they are dull. And Lois Lane's a real ninny in some of those. But there's more to Superman than the tights and the cape, or throwing cars around. Now I have here a Superman story I think you'll like very much. I thought I'd read you some of this, and then you can decide for yourself. Deal?"

 

"...Deal."

 

"Very well. Now this version is called 'The Prince Lex.'"

 

"Does it have friendships and adventures?"

 

"Does it! Star-crossed love. Beautiful young men. Inseparable friends. Bad guys. Good guys. Bad girls. Good girls. Wicked fathers. Wise mothers. You'll love it, I just know. So let me begin.

 

"Ahem. Once upon a time..."

 

***

 

Once upon a time, in a small farm town in a faraway land, there lived a young prince whose name was Lex. Now, princes as a rule don't live in small farm towns; they live in cities. But this prince had been sent by his father, the King, to govern this small outpost in his kingdom as a test of the young man's ruling abilities. Or so the King said. Lex privately suspected that he was a thorn in his father's side and that he had been sent away so as not to embarrass the King.

 

Small farm towns are nice, quiet places to live for the people who are born and raised there -- but for a young man accustomed to the noise and activity and dangers of a great city like Metropolis, this town was a dull, terrible, wall-less prison, a place of exile far from the wild parties and boisterous companions to which he had been accustomed. In addition, his governing duties were dull and repetitive and most of the farmers were foul-smelling, which put the prince in an even fouler mood.

 

The only two pleasures Lex took in his new life were in driving his expensive cars very fast on the roads of the small town, and in tormenting the young man who brought him fresh produce every day from his family's farm. So proud and haughty was Lex that he would not even use the lad's name, but ordered him around thus:

 

"Farmboy! Fetch me that basket of apples!"

 

To which the young man would say, as he brought the bushel of fruit to the prince,

 

"As you wish."

 

Or, on another occasion, Lex would drive up to his home where the young farmer stood with his basket of produce, leap from the vehicle and imperiously order,

 

"Farmboy! Wash and wax my Porsche!"

 

Again, the lad's reply was the same, as soft and even-voiced as ever, even as he stripped off his flannel shirt and stood naked to the waist beside the sleek, beautiful automobile, with a hose in one hand and a soapy sponge in the other.

 

"As you wish."

 

On still another occasion, while Lex was at fencing practice, he threw a foil in anger and it fell near the lad's feet. Furious at losing a match to his trainer, Lex snapped, "Farmboy, bring that back to me!"

 

The lad picked up the sword in one hand, walked over to the prince, took his hand with his free hand, and pressed the pommel of the foil into Lex's palm, curling the hand round the hilt with both of his big hands. He smelled of apples, and his eyes were the color of the sky.

 

"As you wish," he said quietly, and reached a hand up to gently close Lex's mouth before turning and walking out the door of the game room.

 

No matter what order Lex gave to "Farmboy," or how proudly or coldly he snapped his demands, the young man's reply never varied, never showed anger or resentment. Always, his reply was a quiet, gentle, "As you wish."

 

That steady reply worked on Lex the way sunshine works on a clump of spring snow. And it wasn't long before Lex began to realize that every time this young man said "As you wish," he was really saying, "I love you."

 

And Lex looked at this young man he had treated like a servant for so long out of cruelty and loneliness. He saw how beautiful the lad was, how strong and well-built, how splendid he had looked washing the car, and how blue his eyes had been looking down into his own in the game-room. A great longing built in the prince for the wild games he had played with his cronies in the city. The farmboy loved him. It would be easy.

 

So the next time the lad came to the prince's estate with his bushel of fresh apples, Lex smiled at him. "Farmboy," he said softly. "Lie with me."

 

The lad set the apples down and went to Lex. "As you wish," he whispered.

 

They kissed.

 

***

 

"Eeww!"

 

"What is it?"

 

"They're _kissing_!"

 

"So?"

 

"Grandma, I hate kissing! They always have kissing scenes in movies!"

 

"You know, in a few years you might not hate kissing in books and movies so much."

 

"Gross!"

 

"Still want me to skip them?"

 

"Yes!"

 

"Fine. Let's see, where were we. Kissing, skip that. We don't need this part either. Here we go..."

 

***

 

The next day Lex awaited the farm lad with great eagerness. He had not slept much that night, thinking of the handsome young man and the joy he had found in those strong arms. The pleasure had been so intense, that at one moment Lex had felt as if he were flying. This dull little town now had one thing he thoroughly enjoyed.

 

But that day another boy came to Lex's estate with the basket of fruits and vegetables from the farm. He also brought a note from the lad, which Lex opened with haste.

 

 _My beloved Prince,_ [the note read] _I am off to the city to make my fortune and prove myself your equal. When I have risen to an estate in which you can look into my eyes and see who I truly am -- when you can love me as I love you -- I will return and become your inseparable companion._

_P.S. My name is Clark._

 

Lex was enraged, but it was too late. The lad was gone to the city, and he himself must stay to work at his father the King's business in this dull little town. There was nothing he could do but stay, so he stayed.

 

One month later word came from the city that the young man had been crossing a city bridge on foot when he was struck by an automobile which hurled him into the water far below. His body was never recovered.

 

Lex laughed bitterly when he heard the news. Those days with the farm boy -- with Clark -- had been the sweetest he had ever known in his dissolute life. A tenderness had stirred within him that he had thought dead and buried with his beloved mother.

 

The prince knew, then, that the pain he had felt in missing the lad had not been yearning for his sweet body. It had been love. True love. And now it was gone.

 

Lex hoisted a bottle of expensive imported water and silently toasted the dead boy and his wasted chance. "I," he said, and drained the bottle, "shall never love again." He flung the bottle into the fireplace. Then he called his father, and agreed to the marriage the King had arranged with a neighboring King's daughter.

 

Not long afterwards the prince stood with his lovely betrothed upon the balcony of his estate, flanked by their grimly smiling regal fathers, and addressed the town people. "Citizens of Smallville," he proclaimed, "I present to you your future queen, the Princess Victoria!"

 

"Ayuh," the farmers responded, and wandered away to finish shoveling cow manure and chugging through the spring mud in their filthy tractors. Lex envied them.

 

Preparations for a grand royal wedding began at once, and took up great amounts of time, money, and icing. Princess Victoria brought in her wedding planner, Nell, who soon filled the best rooms in the palace with yards of fabric, forests of flowers and her own obnoxious, imperious personality. It seemed that if the slightest detail of this wedding were to be left to chance, both kingdoms would collapse.

 

With only a few days remaining before the nuptials, Lex was more unhappy than he had ever been in his life. He spent his time avoiding Nell, Victoria and the palace, driving out and far from that small town, as if trying to drive back the clock or to escape the invisible fences that held him here.

 

One day he had gone very far, and was deep in a clump of woods when his Porsche got a flat tire. Cursing, Lex climbed out to fix it himself. As he was taking the spare out of the trunk, he heard a voice say, "My lord?"

 

Lex looked and saw three people facing him -- a pop-eyed man dressed like a guardsman, a mouse-haired white teenage girl in a pink sweater, and a muscular black teenage boy wearing football shoulder pads and a helmet.

 

"Forgive us, my lord, " the guardsman said politely. "I was driving my kids to their first day at their new school and my car got a flat. I'm walking them to school the rest of the way because it's dangerous here deep in the forest. Can you tell us if we are getting close to Smallville High and the Fighting Crows?"

 

"Go Crows," the two teens chanted.

 

"Your sense of direction is badly damaged," Lex said shortly; he was in no temper to be polite, or even cautious. "We are miles from Smallville High -- and Smallville itself."

 

"In that case," the guardsman said, smiling, "no one will hear you call for help."

 

Lex was hit from behind with a big stick to the back of his bald head. He had never seen anyone sneak up on him. When he found himself wrestling with an armful of air, he realized that he was dealing with a fourth assailant -- and this one was invisible.

 

He'd thrown his invisible attacker right into the pop-eyed man and had kicked the jock in the crotch when the pink-sweatered girl picked him up with one hand and threw him against a tree. The impact stunned him long enough for their leader, the guardsman, to bind him.

 

When the brown-skinned boy stopped rolling around on the ground and moaning, he changed the Porsche's tire and pinned a note to the passenger seat. The car then appeared to start by itself, turn in the direction of Smallville, and drive away, back to the Prince's stately home -- clearly the invisible attacker was at the wheel.

 

"Girl!" the man barked.

 

The mousy girl simply picked up Lex and threw him over her pink-sweatered shoulder. The three trudged through the woods down to a small boat anchored at the shore of the lake.

 

They had rowed a good way out across the lake -- or, rather, the football jock and the strong girl had rowed a good way out -- when Lex said sharply, "What do you hope to gain? My father the King will refuse any ransom you demand! If you kill me, he'll thank you for removing an embarrassing heir, and then he'll have you executed as a warning to others! If it's money you want, you should have simply robbed me -- it's the same risk of the gallows without putting yourself to the trouble of kidnapping me."

 

"I don't want money, Your Highness," the pop-eyed man said cheerily. "I'm just acting on my employer's orders. When your father reads the note in your car, it will implicate conspirators from Smallville in your disappearance. This will be all the excuse needed for Metropolis to annex Smallville, if it doesn't cause a war between the two."

 

War meant profits to so many on so many levels that Lex was kept busy and silent, trying to figure out who would stand to profit most from this scheme. He did not leave out his own father the King as a suspect, nor his less-than-beloved fiancée Princess Victoria from Central City.

 

"Uh, Phelan," the jock said uneasily. "There's a guy following our boat."

 

Phelan snorted. "Inconceivable! I made sure we were well out of earshot and away from anyone who could see us."

 

"But there's the other guy's boat, Phelan," the sweatered girl said.

 

Lex looked, as well as Phelan. There was a small boat following theirs, and gaining.

 

Only one person in that boat. If Lex overcame that one, the boat was his --

 

He jumped overboard, bound arms and all, and began to kick his way toward that small boat.

 

Seconds later he realized his mistake when a shark fin broke the water and headed toward him. Several others followed. The sharks came at Lex, their mouths open --

 

***

 

"Okay, _no way_ , Grandma!"

 

"What?"

 

"Sharks? In a lake?"

 

"Oh. I forgot to mention about the sharks. There's a long passage here in the book, very dull, about the shark eggs that were flushed out of the Metropolis Aquarium by mistake years ago, and got washed into the river and downstream to the lake miles away."

 

"Metropolis sharks?"

 

"Very rare. Very nasty. Big sharp teeth. Green eyes that glow in the dark."

 

"Sharks. Right."

 

"Anyway, Lex is in the water, the sharks come at him, mouths open, and--"

 

***

 

And Lex was seized by the collar of his purple shirt and yanked back into Phelan's boat by the very strong girl. The sharks' teeth snapped on air and water.

 

"Idiot prince!" Phelan snapped. To his hench-teens he shouted, "Row faster! There's only one man in that boat! He'll get tired before we do!"

 

"We?" the boy-jock and the strong girl muttered.

 

"How many times do I have to tell you little thugs that I am the brains of this gang?" Phelan sneered. To the jock he said, "Do you really want to stuff envelopes for the Democrat party for the rest of your life, pretending you were once a great athlete? And you!" This, to the sweatered girl. "May I remind you that you're wanted by the law for stalking the homecoming queen and burying her alive? You're lucky you're not in jail! You two are here to do the things you're good at --  hitting and fighting and rowing."

 

They rowed all night across the lake. Rather, the two teens rowed. Phelan skulked. Lex glowered, which was all he could do tied to the anchor.

 

"Hey, Tina," the boy muttered. "Phelan says we can just fight in the dark."

 

The girl paused. "He's lucky...we don't toss him to a shark."

 

The boy grinned, and pulled his oar. "He thinks he's so great, he thinks he's so smart."

 

The girl smiled and rowed with her own oar. "Phelan the guard is just an old...fart."

 

Phelan glared at them. "Girl, do you have to rhyme?"

 

"No, no, just some of the time." Row. Row.

 

"Stop that rhyming, girl!"

 

"Look down there! Is that a pearl?"

 

Phelan squawked. Lex watched with amusement.

 

By dawn the opposite shore was in sight. And the stranger's boat was still in sight behind them.

 

"Inconceivable!" spluttered Phelan. "He's keeping up with us!"

 

"We're almost at the Cliffs of Improbability," the jock said. "He won't be able to follow us up that way."

 

And indeed there they were, ringing the opposite shore of that lake, looming over everything for nearly 300 feet -- the Cliffs of Improbability.

 

***

 

"Isn't Smallville in Kansas?"

 

"Yes."

 

"There's no cliffs in--"

 

"Shh."

 

***

 

The strong girl in the pink sweater carried Lex out of the boat, anchor and all, once the boy had leaped out and pulled the craft into the shallows. A thick rope dangled from the very top of the cliff. With the aid of a specially-made harness, the pink-sweater girl was soon climbing hand over hand up the rope; this would have been a marvelous testimony to her great strength all by itself, and was even more amazing considering that she also carried Phelan, the boy-jock, and the bound Lex (sans anchor) via the harness.

 

The boy looked down. "Phelan, there he is."

 

Phelan looked down too. There was the man who'd followed them, and the morning light revealed him as wearing an outfit of vivid blue and red. He had just started climbing up the rope as well.

 

"Inconceivable!" spluttered Phelan. "Climb faster, girl!"

 

"I can't climb any faster," said the girl. "And I'm carrying three others as well as myself."

 

"I asked for faster climbing, not excuses! Do you want me to hire another super-strong teenager in your place? Do you?"

 

"Dick," the girl muttered, but climbed faster.

 

At the top of the cliff, Phelan lost no time in cutting the rope and watching it whip out of sight. "That'll stop him!"

 

Both teens looked down the cliff. "Nope, he's still there," said the lad.

 

Phelan stared over the edge. There was the man in blue and red, clinging to the rocks, and slowly climbing up by his fingertips. "Inconceivable!" he spluttered.

 

"You keep using that word," the jock said. "I don't think it means what you think it means."

 

"Enough!" Phelan turned to the girl. "Pick up the Prince and we'll keep going. You." This, to the jock. "Wait till he comes up here, and kill him."

 

"Okay." The jock shrugged. "I'll wrestle him, and when I've pinned him I'll push him off the cliff."

 

"You don't need to do that!" Phelan blustered. "Just push him off the cliff when he's made his way up here!"

 

"Okay," said the jock.

 

Phelan and the girl took off with Prince Lex.

 

Once they were out of sight, the teen boy looked back down the cliff at the advancing young man in blue and red, who was already nearly at the top. "Hey, man, he says I'm supposed to push you off the cliff."

 

"I heard," the stranger responded, still making his way up by finger holds. He was a very good, swift climber.

 

"You know, it's not really fair of me to do that. I'd rather wait till you're up here, and beat you in a fair fight before I kill you. I swear."

 

"You are the enemy," the stranger said dryly. "You'll forgive me if I'm a little skeptical."

 

"What if I gave my word as a football player?"

 

"I've known too many football players."

 

"Then I swear by the career of my father, William Ross, that I will treat you honorably, and kill you only after I've beaten you in a fair fight."

 

The strange young man looked up the cliff. "What is your name?"

 

"Pete. Pete Ross."

 

"Pete. I believe you." With that, the stranger in blue and red finished climbing, and hopped over the edge to stand before the jock.

 

Pete held up his hand. "Catch your breath first, man."

 

"Thanks."

 

They sat amid the rocks overlooking the cliff and eyed each other.

 

"Catchy outfit," Pete said, indicating the stranger's blue-and-red form-fitting suit, and cowled mask. "Looks like a pro-wrestler's costume."

 

"Thanks."

 

"I don't suppose you have shoulder-length hair," the jock said.

 

"Do you start most conversations that way?"

 

"Sorry, man. But I'm looking to put the hurt on this long-haired guy. Wanted to know if you were him."

 

The young stranger lifted the cowl to the side, just enough to show his short black hair, and returned it.

 

"Thanks. See, this long-haired dude evicted my dad from his creamed-corn business years ago. The poor guy was devastated -- he had to become a lawyer just to feed our family. I swore I'd avenge the insult to our family, and to my dad's trust in this guy who'd ruined him."

 

"Your dad went from canning creamed corn to being a lawyer?" the stranger asked. "Wouldn't most people see that as a step up?"

 

"Not in Smallville, man -- Creamed-Corn Capital of the World. That's where people go to make their fortunes in the creamed-corn business -- all the other professions are adjuncts to creamed corn. My father was a broken man when the Long-Haired man finished with him. So I've started studying law too, and practicing every legal trick I could learn, so that when I finally find this man, I can look him in the eye and say: Hello. My name is Peter Ross. You ruined my father. Prepare to be sued."

 

The stranger shuddered involuntarily.

 

"Right, let's get to it shall we?" Pete said, standing up. "Standard rules, best two falls out of three. You lose, I throw you over the cliff. I lose, it's up to you."

 

"Fair enough," said the stranger, also rising. "But I should warn you, I'm stronger than I look. Think locomotives."

 

"Yeah, right," Pete replied, and rushed at the stranger.

 

The young man in blue and red tapped Pete on the forehead with two fingers. Pete blinked. "Super, man," he muttered. Then he fell, out cold.

 

The stranger stared over the land, and picked up the trail of the kidnappers. "Like I said," he called over his shoulder to the unconscious jock as he began to run, "I'm stronger than I look."

 

Amid the steep rocks of a hill a mile away, Phelan saw a blur of blue and red on the horizon. "Inconceivable!" he shrieked. "It's up to you, girl. Stay here, and stop him."

 

The girl set Lex down with a thump. "Should I tie him up and bring him along?"

 

"No, you idiot! Just kill him! Throw a boulder at him! Throw him at a boulder! Whatever!" Taking hold of Lex's bound arm, Phelan hurried away toward distant Metropolis, leaving the girl there.

 

"Dick," she muttered, and looked for a good-sized stone.

 

When the cowled stranger appeared, she threw it at his head as hard as she could. But the stone shattered against the boulder behind the stranger -- he'd stepped aside so quickly it was as if he'd teleported.

 

"Stop!" she shouted, though she was afraid at what his survival meant about his strength. He'd gotten past Pete. She stood away from the rocks and faced the stranger, hefting another very large stone. "I'm stronger than you think!"

 

"I'm sure you are, but I'm faster than you think," the stranger called. Next moment he was off like a shot, gone in a blur of blue and red before she could throw the stone.

 

The girl stood, mouth open and stone still in her hand, watching the blur tear like a speeding bullet after Phelan. "Nice cape," she mused. Then she took off into the wild; Phelan clearly wasn't going to survive long enough to pay her.

 

When the stranger caught up to Phelan, the guardsman had stopped running and shouting "Inconceivable!" He was seated amid the jutting boulders at the edge of a long sloping hill that plunged into a dark forest at the bottom. The bound and blindfolded Lex sat beside Phelan, and the guardsman held a long wickedly-sharp dagger at the prince's throat. "By all means, come closer," Phelan said politely, and dug the dagger tip in; a tiny trickle of blood oozed down Lex's neck. "You'll only wind up killing the Prince that much faster."

 

The stranger stood still. His hands moved rapidly.

 

Phelan laughed. "A mute, are you? I'd be a poor watchman if I couldn't read silent hand signs. 'What do you want,' you say? What I want, blue boy, is for you to stand off and let me go to Metropolis unimpeded with my cargo."

 

More hand-signs.

 

Phelan threw back his head and roared with laughter. " _You're_ going to take him away from me? You may have out-wrestled my moronically honorable jock, or overcome my super-strong girl, but I have the advantage right now. Come a step closer and I slit his throat."

 

Sign sign sign. The stranger folded his arms.

 

"'Then kill him now.'"

 

For the first time since his captivity, Prince Lex smiled a very very little bit. He knew that the stranger had called Phelan's bluff.

 

Phelan snorted. "True. We're needed in Metropolis, and it'll be harder going if I carry a dead bloody man on my shoulders. But I can certainly wound him. Suppose I cut off one of his ears, or put out his eyes?" The knife hovered beneath an earlobe.

 

More signing.

 

"Money?" Phelan snorted in contempt.

 

"Forget it," Lex said bitterly. "I already tried buying him off, and I'm richer than you'll ever be."

 

"Shut up," Phelan snapped to his captive.

 

More signing by the blue-and-red stranger.

 

Phelan likewise rejected the stranger's suggestions of a poison-drinking contest, a quick round of Yahtzee or Rock-Paper-Scissors.

 

"Sorry, hero. Looks like you've been out-thought," Phelan said cheerily. "I hold all the cards. You forgot the most basic premises of warfare. The first is never to get into a land-war in Asia, and the other is to hold the high ground. I hold the high ground and you don't. As long as I don't care what state my captive is in when I get him to Metropolis, I win."

 

In rage and frustration, the stranger punched the rock wall beside him and stalked away, back the way he'd come.

 

Phelan smiled at the retreating back. Without a sound, still holding Lex by one bound arm, he hefted the knife in his hand and drew it back to skewer the stranger between his shoulder-blades.

 

That was when the rock wall cracked and split at the site where the stranger had struck it. A boulder-sized slab toppled and fell. Lex was completely untouched save for the wind of the stone's descent, but all that remained of Phelan was a red smear seeping beneath the rock.

 

The stranger turned and walked back without a word, even as Lex ripped the blindfold off his eyes. Bending down to retrieve the dagger from the limp hand protruding from the boulder, the Prince glared at the cowled blue-and-red man as he cut his own wrist bonds. "Before I thank you for rescuing me, I'd prefer to know your own ulterior motives, or your part in this scheme."

 

"Only to return you to your beloved betrothed, Your Highness," the stranger said in a cold, sharp voice, and started back toward the cliffs.

 

Lex quickly caught up with the striding young man in blue and red. "The Princess Victoria is hardly beloved to me. This will be a convenient and appropriate political marriage, nothing more. Who paid you to save me? Was it Victoria? My father? It seems unlikely."

 

"I came on my own, Your Highness, as a loyal subject of Smallville doing my duty to my Prince. Nothing more, as you say." The young man's voice was still hard and cold. "The sooner the joyful day of your loveless wedding approaches, the better for our kingdoms."

 

Lex wouldn't stand for that, not after the pain he'd felt for months. "Listen, boy," he sneered. "I have known love that made my heart soar. That love is dead and gone now, and so is my heart."

 

"Such pretty, poetic words. How long did you wait to pledge the Princess' troth, Highness?" The angry young cowled figure strode along the hill's steep edge, red cape fluttering behind him. "Was it the very hour you lost that love, or did you wait a whole week out of respect for the dead?"

 

Lex's temper snapped, and with that he shoved his insolent rescuer hard, down the hill. "Go to hell!" he shouted.

 

Down tumbled the blue and red figure, down the steep hill to the dark forest below. A voice wafted up -- soft and gentle, not hard and cold. Familiar.

 

"Aaaasss...youuuu...wiiiishhh..."

 

That voice, that familiar voice! The farm boy -- Clark --

 

"Clark!" Lex shouted, in a very different tone.

 

Only one thing to do, insane and drastic as it was. The Prince flung himself down the hill, after the tumbling figure.

 

The rocks weren't confined to the hill-tops, unfortunately. Lex was more bruised and bloodied by the time he reached the bottom of the hill than he'd been by the entire kidnapping ordeal. His physical pain was the last thing on his mind.

 

When he opened his eyes Clark was gazing down at him. He'd pushed the cowl off his head, and his sky-blue eyes and ruddy cheeks were the same ones Lex had dreamed of with grief these past empty months. His breath still smelled of apples. He smiled.

 

"Clark," Lex whispered, one hand going up to stroke a beautiful cheek. "They said you were dead. You'd been hit by a car and you went into the river. They never found your body. I was in despair. I let my father arrange the marriage to Victoria. My true love was dead."

 

Clark smiled. "I'm stronger than I look," he said softly. "But true love is stronger than I am."

 

They kissed.

 

***

 

"Eeew!"

 

"Oh right, right, you don't want the kissing parts. Let's see, ah--"

 

***

 

"How did you survive the crash?" Lex asked, sitting up to brush bits of weed and stone chips out of his clothes and torn skin.

 

Clark was already on his feet; he didn't seem to have taken much damage from the fall. "I was crossing the bridge over the Metropolis River when some maniac in a Porsche swerved right at me. He had a cell-phone in his hand -- I noticed that. He hit me and knocked me right into the water, along with his car. But I'm stronger than I look. I survived the encounter. So did the man in the Porsche." Clark reached a hand and all but lifted Lex to his feet. "I dragged him out of the car and to the shore, where he coughed up a good portion of the river, three Xanax, and the cell phone. He moaned and tossed his head and muttered, 'Kill the farm boy.'"

 

"Did he have long hair?" Lex asked. He wasn't really surprised, only full of cold anger.

 

"Shoulder-length. And a beard."

 

"And did you see the royal coat of arms on the Porsche door?"

 

"Now that you mention it..."

 

The Xanax only confirmed the Prince's suspicions. "It was the King. My father."

 

"Yes."

 

Who'd wanted this embarrassingly emotional obstacle to an expedient political marriage stricken from the picture in a way that would not cause his son to object. "So you disappeared before he regained consciousness, and you hid your identity."

 

"Exactly." Clark smiled his beautiful smile again. The bold blue and red colors of his suit looked good on him.

 

Lex smiled -- truly smiled, for the first time since he received Clark's note. "My father can go hang, Clark. If you can defeat a very strong girl, an honorable wrestler and a corrupt guardsman, I think you can face the King unmasked while I let him know that I have made my choice. He will have to settle for negotiation if he wants Central City under his thumb as well as Metropolis. I will not marry Victoria."

 

Clark smiled again, and left his cowl down. "In the meantime..." He looked away from the hills, to the dark and threatening woods. "We'd best go back to Smallville by an alternate route. Through the Woods of Weird."

 

Lex stared apprehensively into the forbidding forest. "We'll die if we go home that way. No one survives the Woods of Weird."

 

"Oh, pooh! You're only saying that because no one ever has. I think we should start a trend, don't you?"

 

Lex shrugged. They ran into the unwelcoming canopies of tree limbs.

 

It was dark within the forest, save for occasional flashes of unnatural orange light; the stillness was punctuated by an odd "foom-foom" sound followed by the screams of small rodents.

 

"This could be a valuable foray," Clark said. "If we learn exactly what are the perils of the Woods of Weird, we'll be able to find a way around them and warn others."

 

"Legend says there are three perils," Lex replied. "Each one is deadly."

 

Foom! Foom-foom!

 

"That sound..." Clark mused.

 

And then the trees before them burst into flames, with a man in their midst dressed in a Smallville High sweatshirt, a baseball cap and wearing a whistle around his neck. "How dare you destroy my legacy!" the Fire-Coach roared, his eyes blazing. Flames leaped out at them from the trees.

 

Lex yanked Clark back from the flames, and helped him stomp out the blaze that had caught on his red cape. Taking up a handful of sand from the ground, Lex threw it in the Fire-Coach's eyes. "Go snuff yourself, coach!" he shouted.

 

Howling in rage, the Fire-Coach covered his eyes with his forearms and fell back amid the trees. They were in darkness again, with only a few smoldering branches here and there to light their way.

 

"Right," Clark said. "Well, that's one. That strange noise is the sound just before he blazes up. So we'll be warned next time. That was quick thinking, Your Highness."

 

"Well, everyone knows that sand will put out a fire..." Lex paused and looked down.

 

So did Clark.

 

"Sand?" they both said, just as they plunged out of sight into the sand-pit they'd been standing on.

 

The forest was quiet again, save for the crackling of fires and the nearby ominous rumblings of yet another peril. A smoldering tree fell over, one branch poking deep into the sand-pit.

 

A hand seized the branch and pulled hard, let go and grabbed for a higher hold. Slowly, Clark pulled himself out of the deadly sucking sand-pit, one arm wrapped tight around Lex. They clung to the charred log, coughing out sand and gasping for breath.

 

"A featureless, expressionless pit that sucks the life out of everything that crosses it," Lex gasped when he could speak once more.

 

"Reminds me of a girl in my class," Clark said, standing on the log and offering Lex a hand out. "I think I'll call this thing Lana Lang, too."

 

Together they walked on the log out of the Lanalang Sand and back onto the solid, non-sandy ground of the sullen forest.

 

Clark was decidedly cheerier as they traversed the gloomy woods. "Well, we're nearly to safety, Lex! We've discovered how to look for the Fire-Coach, and that tree was kind enough to save both of us from the Lanalang Sand."

 

"What about the T.F.S.C.'s?" Lex said.

 

"The Terrible Fat-Sucking Chicks?" Clark replied. "I don't believe in --"

 

Just then a Terrible Fat-Sucking Chick pounced on Clark, face contorting like a SCREAM mask. Lex leaped forward to help and was flung aside once again. He was having no impact at all with women of any age.

 

Frantically Lex riffled his pockets and found some sandy M&Ms, which he threw into the gaping maw even as Clark wrestled with the savage creature. It was no good. Lean and wiry as a giant blonde rat, as cruel and voracious as Melissa Rivers at the Oscars, the fat-vampire tore and worried at Clark's flesh. It was clear that the lipophage was starving, living this close to Smallville and its lean and photogenic young people.

 

Lex looked around for a stake (or a steak) and heard "Foom. Foom-foom." Instantly he jumped up and waved his arms.

 

The Fire-Coach blazed into view.

 

"Look!" Lex shouted, and pointed at the T.F.S.C. "Over there, coach! It's trying to overthrow your legacy!"

 

FOOM! The liposuctioning creature went up in flames with a squall.

 

Lex pulled Clark away and helped put him out once again. Their noses wrinkled at the smell of charbroiled, very lean veal that came from the dead T.F.S.C.

 

"Well," Clark said, "at least she's now the Size 2 she always wanted to be. Well done, Lex."

 

"Afraid so," Lex said, eyeing the charred remains with disgust. "I don't think I'll ever eat meat again." He touched Clark's shoulder with one hand, wincing in disgust at the slobber. "Did she hurt you badly?"

 

"Not even close. I'm stronger than I look, Lex. More to the point, we're almost out of the forest, and once you're back in the castle we can--"

 

"We can see you pay for your crimes, kidnapper," a cold voice said from before them.

 

Clark and Lex looked at the group that had just appeared ahead of them. A pretty, haughty woman sat in the driver's seat of a Ferrari, and Lex's father the King was in the Porsche that had been driven off by the invisible boy. Many other men and women surrounded them, heavily armed.

 

"This man saved me from the kidnappers," Lex called out at once. "He has been injured saving my life in the Woods of Weird."

 

The King clapped, slowly, three times. "You have our gratitude, peasant. Your duty is discharged. Lex, return with me to Metropolis."

 

"Yes, Lex, come back to the castle," Princess Victoria said. "You must be overcome by your terrible ordeal. And our wedding is only a few days away."

 

"I think not, Your Highness," Lex said. "I have found my true love again, and it is he that I will wed."

 

"Don't talk nonsense, Lex," said the King. "You will wed the Princess Victoria, and that's that. Don't let some fling with a farm boy cloud your judgment."

 

"That's quite all right, Your Majesty," said Clark cheerily. "Lex and I have decided that we can stay in the Woods of Weird until this can be resolved."

 

In the next moment every rifle and gun muzzle was pointed at Clark.

 

"Or we can resolve this right now, farmboy," the King said, just as cheerily.

 

"If you promise not to hurt him, Your Majesty, I will go with you," Lex said at once.

 

"Lex, I'm stronger than I look," Clark muttered. "I don't know if I'm bulletproof or not, but what better way to find out?"

 

"I won't lose you again, I couldn't bear it," Lex muttered back.

 

"Hurt him?" The King smiled. "Why, Lex, I only want to question him on his remarkable ability to survive the Woods of Weird. His insight may finally make this corner of my kingdom safe for other people." All the guns and rifles went back to the guardsmen's shoulders as two of the men took hold of Clark.

 

"Now come with me, Lex darling," Princess Victoria said. "You've had a terrible time of it. I'll run us a hot bath."

 

The only thing Lex wanted less than a hot bath with Victoria was to be parted from Clark now. But his father held all the cards, once again. Never breaking his gaze with Clark, Lex let himself be herded into the passenger seat of the Ferrari. The betrothed royal couple drove away, in the direction of the great city Metropolis.

 

"You lied," Clark said flatly.

 

"Of course," the King said airily. "Royals do not make promises to peasants."

 

"One royal has made a promise to one peasant," Clark said. He smiled. "I see you have shoulder-length hair. I know someone who wants to meet you." He yanked his arms free of the guards that held him, ready to dash back into the woods.

 

Still smiling, the King held up his hand. Emblazoned on one ring was a shiny green stone.

 

Clark collapsed, sick and weak and frightened. He had never felt this ill before.

 

"Know thy enemy, goes the saying." The King waved his glowing green-stone ring before the crouching farmboy. "I have studied you well, farmboy. I have learned the one thing that cripples you. Take him along."

 

Clark lost consciousness as the guards seized him again.

 

***

 

"Gramma, how'd the King know about kryptonite?"

 

"Spies. Informants. Tattletales. Intrigues. Sources. Snitches. Listening devices. Hidden cameras. Turncoats. Hearsay--"

 

"Okay, okay, okay I get it!"

 

"And I'm just listing the top ten methods used by powerful and ruthless people."

 

"Eew."

 

***

 

When Clark came to, he was lying on a metal table. He seemed to be alone in what looked like a laboratory of sorts. He was fettered and manacled to the table, and from his sick feeling he knew that the strange power the King held over him in the ring was in this room too. Indeed, there seemed to be a faint green glow from a small open box just over his head and fastened to a support pillar, that made him too weak to snap his bonds. The TFSC hadn't done much damage to him, but she had hurt him, and the immediate presence of that sickly green ring on the King's hand hadn't helped.

 

Clark heard a thumping sound from behind him -- the sound of someone descending a flight of stairs. A man approached him. From the man's white lab coat and untidy mop of hair, it was clear that he was a scientist of some kind. "How is my patient today?" the man said, beaming at Clark.

 

"I've been better," Clark said airily. "I don't know why I'm a patient -- I'm not really sick. So if you don't mind I'd like to go now."

 

"I'm sure you do," the man said. "But the King is very interested in you. I have to make sure you're well before he starts questioning you."

 

Clark took a deep breath, which hurt under that green light. "And by 'questioning' you mean 'torturing,' don't you?"

 

"Torturing is for barbarians," the labcoated man snapped, examining Clark's shoulder where the TFSC had attacked him. "Our discoveries will benefit the entire kingdom. My special job is to discover everything there is to know about these special green rocks. They may make a very useful weapon if hostiles ever show up here." The man glowered at Clark. "Hostiles, such as a treacherous young man who has seduced a prince away from doing his duty to the kingdom."

 

"If there was any seducing," Clark said sharply, "we seduced each other. Tell the King that."

 

"You may tell the King yourself, when he appears tonight," the scientist said. "Be honored that His Majesty will grant his presence at such an important time. He is in excellent spirits, by the way." The man gathered up his instruments. "His son will wed the Princess Victoria in two days. The entire kingdom is preparing for a celebration."

 

Clark closed his eyes as the scientist left him alone once again.

 

Three days later Prince Lex sat upon his dais and contemplated the dead body laid out before him. This time it was no rumor or hearsay. The proof of Clark's death lay before his eyes. His father and his father's agents, of course. Not that he could ever prove such a thing, or be allowed to spend so much time worrying over a dead troublemaking peasant.

 

He leaned over Clark's corpse to lay one last kiss on the dead lips, but a hand on his arm stayed him. It was his bride-to-be. "Lex, we'll be late for our wedding if we stay here," Victoria said, not looking at the corpse at her feet.

 

Lex looked at her, and the last wisp of love he'd ever felt for another human being shriveled and was gone like a single hair in a fire. Yes. It was time for him to do his duty by his kingdom. Wed this cold-hearted schemer and acquire her lands, spend his married life avoiding her poisoners and assassins, and see which of them would survive to ascend the high throne once his father had finally been claimed by the Devil.

 

Lex looked at Victoria and said,

 

***

 

"Wait a minute, Grandma."

 

"Yes, honey?"

 

"Um...that isn't right. That isn't in the story."

 

"It's right there. See?"

 

"But...but he's not dead. Clark can't die like that. He and Lex should be together, not Lex and that rotten Victoria!"

 

"Honey, this is what the story says--"

 

"But these guys don't die! They're comic book guys, they don't die! Clark's having a bad dream! Or, or that creepy scientist gave him a drug to make him think this is happening! Or Lex took the drug!"

 

"No. None of that happened."

 

"But Superman doesn't die! Not even when he died in that Doomsday thing!"

 

"Honey, I know most comic books don't let people stay dead forever. But stories get changed. People tell their own stories. Even superheroes have died, really died, forever, in official comic books -- 'Crisis on Alternate Earths,' 'Death in the Family.'"

 

"I don't care! The story can't end this way! Doesn't Lex even kill the King for doing this? How can he just roll over and do what his father says after this? Why did you even start this story!"

 

"Sweetheart, I think you're taking this too personally. Maybe I should leave this and read you something else--"

 

"No, Grandma, keep reading, please!"

 

"But I'm upsetting you, and you don't like the way this is going- -"

 

"I just wanna hear how it works out. Please, Grandma. I'm calm. Really, I'm okay. I'm okay now. Really."

 

"Well...all right. If you say so. Let's see. So Lex says to Victoria..."

 

***

 

"Then let us go to the altar, Your Highness."

 

So they were wed. And as the newly-wed royal couple stood at the door of the royal chapel, the citizens of Metropolis, Smallville and Central City cheered, and then bowed to their future monarchs.

 

But then Lex heard a loud "Boo! Boo!" from the crowd. Startled, he looked over the bowed heads, and saw the one unbowed head -- a young blonde woman with a PRESS card around her neck from the Daily Planet.

 

"Prince Lex Spurns True Love to Wed For True Greed!" the young woman shouted, scribbling away in her notepad. "Bearing of a Prince, Heart of a Snake!"

 

"Why are you saying this?" Lex asked, angry and bewildered.

 

"Your Obedient Highness would rather roll over like a lapdog for your father's wishes than follow the path of true love!" the woman called back angrily. "What is the hallmark of true royalty, Your Highness? Is it purple clothing, or a gold headband, or the right to have a troublesome subject put to death? No -- the true mark of a royal heart is courage. Courage! Courage to do what is right!" To the people around her she said, "Look at him! Look at her! Such a beautiful-looking couple they make, the Prince and the Princess! And it's as real as the sugar-candy bride and groom atop a wedding cake! He whines and fawns at his father's feet, and kills his heart to gain a kingdom! Boo! Boo!"

 

The other people straightened up and glared at the shocked Prince. "Boo!" they roared. "Boo! Boooo!"

 

Lex leaped up with a cry of fear, and found himself sitting up in bed. The wedding was still two days off. It had only been a horrible dream.

 

***

 

"See! I was right, it was a bad dream! I told you so!"

 

"Do you want me to go home right now and take the book with me?"

 

"...no. Go on, Grandma."

 

***

 

Lex was not one to take warning signs lightly. He rose from his bed that very moment and flung on his robes, and marched into the King's chamber.

 

The King sat up in his bed. So did the Princess Victoria.

 

Sadly, Lex was not really surprised, and he didn't let the revelation slow him down. "Your Majesty, I will not wed the Princess," he said sharply. "Your Highness, it is Clark I want, and not you. It is Clark I will have as my true love."

 

"Really, Lex," Victoria snapped, looking indignant (not a bad trick to pull off when one was caught naked in bed with one's fiancée's father by said fiancée). "Listen to reason and logic. We are to be wed."

 

"Don't be ridiculous, Lex," the King said irritably. "You know this wedding will be an advantageous match."

 

"Advantageous for you, Your Majesty," Lex said. "All of Central City will be yours, as well as Metropolis and Smallville. I have not been blind to the messages you and the Princess have exchanged. I will no longer pretend that I see nothing."

 

"But the decorations have been hung, the cake baked, the linens monogrammed," Victoria pouted. "Nell will be furious."

 

"What -- Your Highness is now afraid to inconvenience a few servants? What a change of heart, especially when everyone in Central City knows you don't flinch at beating your dressmaker or your cook!" Lex snapped. "Father, call Clark back from his farm and bring him here. It is he I will wed, and you and Victoria may be hanged together."

 

The King smiled. "Clark is not on a farm, Lex. After talking to me, he has gone his own way, into the wilderness. He said he didn't want to ruin your special day by showing up and embarrassing you."

 

Lex smiled also. "More likely Clark has gone to muster an army, and bring them back to my side to oppose you. Clark is no ordinary farm boy."

 

The King lost his smile. "Yes. I know that very well."

 

Lex felt calm, as if he'd just battled his fencing instructor to victory. "Let the wedding go on as you see fit, Your Majesty. My Clark will return for me. And then, Your Highness, we will see who is embarrassed." He left the chambers.

 

The King stared after his son. "I always knew that boy would be nothing but trouble," he muttered.

 

"Lex? Or that dung-shoveling farmer's brat?" Victoria sneered.

 

"Does it matter?" The King rang a bell.

 

A tall blond thug appeared and bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty?" A good lackey, the thug saw nothing out of the ordinary in his master's bedchamber.

 

"Whitney, I've heard rumors that a mercenary army is mustering to attack my son on his wedding day," the King said to the Captain of the Guard. "No doubt they'll recruit in the Thieves' Forest."

 

"No one's in there but a few mangy bandits and the hermit Kyle," Whitney said. "Trash, but hardly fighting stock."

 

"It is a believable source. Draft a brute squad and clear out the forest for a day's journey in every direction from the castle." The King rose from his bed. "I myself will be occupied for a time at my laboratory. Report back to me in 24 hours with an empty forest to show for your work, or it's your jockstrap."

 

"Yes, Your Majesty," the thug said, and bowed deeply before leaving the chambers.

 

"I'd best go back to planning my wedding, Your Majesty," Victoria said demurely, also rising from the bed.

 

"Yes." The King smiled at his paramour and future daughter-in- law. "After all, we want this event to be a fairy tale made real. The peasants will love it. Those commemorative tea-towels and plates were a brilliant idea of yours."

 

"We're levying a special tax on those items," Victoria said. "Those unwashed idiots will buy anything."

 

The King stared at the young woman. "If you weren't betrothed to my son," he said, "I'd marry you myself."

 

Victoria left the room. The King headed out to his laboratory, which looked like an old barn rotting at the edge of the Thieves' Forest.

 

His lab-man met him there and bowed. "Your Majesty, I have the subject prepared for you. Say the word and we may begin the experimentation."

 

"Very good, Dr. Hamilton," said the King, and the two descended the storm cellar into the room where Clark lay bound and helpless beneath the cruel green light glowing over his naked body.

 

"So this is the threat to my son's marriage," the King said amusedly, as Clark's eyes opened, bleary with pain, to stare at the two men. "This brazen kidnapper who can dance through the Woods of Weird but faints at a little, little rock from the sky."

 

"Your son danced through those woods with me," Clark whispered. "We conquered the unconquerable, together."

 

"I think we need to learn more about what these rocks do to this saboteur, Dr. Hamilton," the King said, and took up another, larger glowing rock from a box nearby. He smiled at the big-eyed young man on the table. "Does it hurt when I do this?" He touched Clark's forehead with the stone.

 

Clark screamed and his back arched. His body shook violently under his restraints. Tears flew from his eyes and frothy saliva dribbled from his howling mouth. Blood started at the places where Clark yanked at the iron bands on his wrists and ankles. His heels drummed hard on the metal table.

 

The King took away the stone and Clark collapsed, sobbing for breath.

 

"I'd say that's a yes," Dr. Hamilton said, and made some notes on his clipboard. "What do you think, Your Majesty?"

 

"I don't know, Dr. Hamilton," the King mused, eyeing the shivering, sobbing boy before him. "The hallmark of the true scientific method is repeatability. In other words, will we get the same results every time?"

 

Dr. Hamilton and the King smiled. "Only one way to find out, Your Majesty," said the scientist.

 

The King nodded. "At least one more time. Five or ten would get us more scientific results." He turned back to the shaking Clark, and lowered the stone again.

 

Meanwhile Whitney and his brute squad were kept busy clearing out the thieves and brigands from the surrounding forest, driving them away or hauling them off to the dungeons for the duration of the royal wedding. But one thief would not leave.

 

"He's holed up in the hut, Captain," a guardsman said. "Every time someone gets close to him, he throws a pack of legal papers at them. Those things hurt." He rubbed his head.

 

Whitney curtly signaled his best brute and marched on the hut himself.

 

In the hut was Pete Ross, furious and ready, throwing legal briefs at all comers. "Habeas Corpus!" he shouted, clocking another goon. "Anti-trust! Restraint of trade! Emotional distress! Come on, Long- Haired Man, I'm ready for you! Bring it on!"

 

Whitney signaled his thug. "All right, you little punk, you're sleeping in the dungeon ton--"

 

Whitney was picked up and thrown hard against a rock. He was out like a light.

 

Pete blinked in the dim light of the hut at the thug who'd just turned on her boss. He gaped. "Tina? That you?"

 

The strong girl in the pink sweater smiled. "Pete. How d'you do?"

 

The girl brought Pete up to speed on all that had happened at the castle -- including the fact that Lex was to be wed the next day, the castle was surrounded by guards, and that the King was a long-haired man.

 

"Man, we need that guy -- the one in blue and red who iced Phelan and put the smackdown on both of us," Pete said. "If anyone can get through that many guards and help me get my revenge, he can."

 

"We don't know where we can find the man," Tina said.

 

"Don't bother me with trivia!" Pete snapped. "I'm within suing distance of the man who canned my dad's factory!"

 

At the castle, Victoria found Lex in the game room, playing pool. "My husband-to-be," she said with a smile.

 

"My princess bride," Lex said, with the same smile, and struck a blue ball into a pocket.

 

"Your farmboy will not return, you know," Victoria said. "He is a kidnapper and a dangerous threat who faces death if he returns anywhere near the castle."

 

Lex smiled at the red ball, and sent it after the blue ball. "He's stronger than he looks. And he loves me, as I love him -- as I do not love you, nor you love me. My Clark will return to join me."

 

Victoria's smile wavered. "I wouldn't say such things if I were you, Lex," she hissed. "We will be wed tomorrow."

 

"No such wedding will occur," Lex said. "Your commemorative royal-wedding tea-towels and plates will become valuable collector's items because they will have commemorated a non-event. Take the money and be happy with it, and with the King's sexual attentions. I don't beg for my father's table scraps any more."

 

Victoria turned gray; her pinched lips turned white. She left the room and the double-doors banged shut hard behind her.

 

Lex set down the pool cue and headed to his office. His spies hadn't located Clark yet, but worry would be pointless now. He unlocked his laptop and sent a few coded messages. 

 

In the laboratory, Dr. Hamilton and the King looked up in surprise as Victoria strode into the room, radiating fury. "What are you doing here, girl!" the King snapped.

 

Ignoring both men, Victoria bent over the shaking, gasping captive. Clark blinked open eyes running with pain-tears to see her.

 

"You two, together, would have been happier on your worst day than he and I will ever be on our best day," Victoria hissed in the boy's face. "So I think no one will suffer as much as you will!" She snatched up a chunk of the green rock and shoved it into Clark's gasping mouth.

 

"No!" Dr Hamilton and the King shouted together before clapping hands to their ears and staggering back from the table at the scream that radiated from the captive.

 

Victoria also staggered back, clutching her ears and shaking her head.

 

Beakers shattered from the sound, spewing green and yellow and red smoke. Engines trembled from the sonic vibrations. Kettles screamed -- unheard in the shriek coming from the captive. The walls of the barn shook and bowed, creaking, from the pressure of that noise.

 

All three fled the barn in different directions, through swaying trees and along with terrified animals dashing away for their lives from the horrifying noise.

 

The sound roared through the forest.  People huddled in their huts, shaking. Guards at the castle gate gripped their weapons anxiously.  In the Thieves' Forest, lowlifes fled the sound, along with members of the brute squad.

 

Pete and Tina did not. "That's the guy!" Pete said. "That's the guy who beat us both! Only he could have a yell of pain strong enough to clear out a forest!"

 

So Pete and Tina were the only ones to run toward the sound of ultimate suffering.

 

They ran into Dr. Hamilton running the other way. Tina caught the struggling, yelling man. "This is the King's torturer," she said. "This must be the one who caused the pain we're hearing."

 

"Lemme go! Lemme go!" Dr Hamilton screamed, kicking and fighting the strong girl. "Dammit, lemme go!"

 

"Where is he? Where is the man you're torturing on the King's orders?" Pete snarled at Dr. Hamilton.

 

"Torturing is for barbari--"

 

Tina shook the man the way a terrier shakes a rat; when she stopped, the man dangled limp from her hand.  "We _said_ 'where is he'?" she growled in his face.

 

"Clark! Clark! Barn! Barn! Lemme go!" Dr Hamilton shrieked, hysterical.

 

Tina shrugged and set Dr. Hamilton down, and the man tore away from them, running fast to get away.  (Dr. Hamilton was never seen again.  They say he didn't stop running until he wound up in Champion City, where he met his end at the tines of the Blue Rajah's fork.)

 

The shriek stopped just then; the silence was deadly. "Clark," Pete said. "His name is Clark!"

 

Pete and Tina followed the trail of flattened grass from panicked animals, back toward the bent trees, and then the broken and fallen trees, until the still-trembling wooden barn came before them. They entered the decrepit structure.

 

The place was a mess of shattered glass and disrupted machinery, oozing liquids and noxious odors. And in the midst of the carnage, a metal table, and a body lying still upon it, despite the snapped bands that had once held him.

 

It was Clark. And he was dead.

 

"He's dead," said Tina.

 

"You're not kidding," Pete added, staring sadly at the contorted corpse.

 

***

 

"Well?"

 

"Well what, Grandma?"

 

"Aren't you going to get mad at me for reading you this story, if it's just going to be about Clark dying like that?"

 

"It's not over yet."

 

"You sure?"

 

"Yeah, I'm sure. If Lex isn't gonna give up, I'm not either."

 

"Smart kid."

 

***

 

"He's dead," said Tina.

 

"You're not kidding," Pete added, staring sadly at the contorted corpse. "We'd need a miracle to save him now."

 

"What about Miracle Maxim?"

 

Pete winced. "Didn't the brute squad run him off?"

 

"We cleared the whole Thieves' Forest, except for three. There was you. The hermit Kyle kept shaking our hands and telling us he didn't need to be chased out, and for some reason we believed him and left him alone. And Maxim came out of his house and started talking to us, and most of the brute squad ran away."

 

Pete winced again. "I don't blame you guys. Oh man, do we _have_ to? Miracle Maxim?"

 

"If anyone can help us, his wife can," Tina replied stoutly. "And to get her help, we have to go to him."

 

Pete glared at Clark's body as Tina lifted it in her arms. "Clark man, you owe us big time for this."

 

So off they went, the three of them, to a little farm located between the forest and Smallville.  Over the kitchen doorway was the motto: LIVE SIMPLY THAT OTHERS MAY SIMPLY LIVE.

 

"Oh God, this is gonna hurt," Pete whimpered. But he knocked at the door.

 

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here!" a voice boomed from inside.

 

"Miracle Maxim?" Tina called. "Aren't you the farmer who's been enemies of the King since he took over Smallville?"

 

"To remind someone of past injuries is to re-open the wound!" the man shouted angrily. "Guests are best viewed as they leave! Suffer not the King! Heavy lies the head that wears the crown!"

 

"I'm outta here," Pete whispered.

 

Tina collared him as he tried to flee. "Miracle Maxim," she called again, "We have an innocent here who needs a miracle from you and your wife! He is a victim of the King's mischief!"

 

"Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!" Maxim bellowed from within.

 

"This isn't a trick!" Tina called. "This man can't even hurt you, he's dead!"

 

The door opened a crack, and a farmer in his late 40s peered at Clark's body. "Dead men tell no tales," he observed. "There's always someone worse off than you."

 

Pete pinched his lips and whimpered. But he managed to whimper out, "This guy...this guy got the King mad. The King did this to him. If you could help us out here..."

 

Miracle Maxim's eyebrows rose as Pete mentioned the King. "To have the ear of a King is to be a King," he said suspiciously.

 

"Oh for God's sake, let them in, you big hick!" a woman's voice snapped from behind Maxim.

 

Maxim winced and turned to face his wife as she came to the door. He was momentarily silenced by her, and Pete liked the woman already.

 

The Witch was a pretty woman, also in her mid-40s, and she pursed her lips as she appraised the visitors. "You say the King killed this poor young man?"

 

"We need a miracle desperately," Pete said to her. "I know he's dead, but--"

 

"I've seen worse, bring him in," the Witch said.

 

Maxim stared uncomprehending at his wife.

 

The Witch said, slowly and clearly as if to an imbecile, "Mi casa es su casa."

 

Maxim nodded, still frowning a little. But he let Pete and Tina in with their burden.

 

"Just plop him on the kitchen table, I'll be right back," said the Witch, and disappeared.

 

Maxim glared at Clark's body. "Trust requires a lifetime to gain and needs but a moment to be lost," he muttered.

 

"Look, man," Pete said to Maxim. "This guy -- his name's Clark --  Clark really needs a miracle. He deserves a miracle. He's -- he's a good guy, loves widows and orphans, saves nuns and cute fuzzy animals from danger..."

 

"The more you shovel it, the higher it piles," Maxim retorted, glaring at Pete.

 

"Dude, _I_ need this miracle!" Pete snapped, losing his temper. "If Clark stays dead, we can't storm the castle tonight, we can't call off the royal wedding, the King gets control of Central City--"

 

Maxim stared at Pete. "Get me to the church on time?" he asked, pointing to Clark.

 

"We ruin the wedding," Pete prompted, seeing what he had to say. "The King loses his grip on his son. The King loses Princess Victoria's lands. Humiliations galore."

 

The change in the farmer was astounding. Maxim beamed from ear to ear. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend!" he boomed, giving Pete a hard whack on the back.

 

The Witch came back, her arms piled high with different colors and types of cloth. "Right, let's get to business."

 

"Your sorceress' robes for your magic?" Pete asked.

 

"Of course not," the Witch snapped, shaking out her armload -- a red flannel shirt, patched blue jeans, socks, underwear, some worn boots. "The poor boy shouldn't wake up naked. He's about your size, dear."

 

Maxim smiled. "Clothes make the man," he said predictably.

 

Rolling his eyes, Pete helped the Witch dress Clark's body. Even in flannel and denim, red and blue looked good on him.

 

Only when the body was dressed did the Witch pull out what looked like a spotty, small apple. "Make him take a bite of this," the Witch said to Pete. "It's organic."

 

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away," Miracle Maxim said inevitably. Pete bit his lip.

 

The Witch held the apple, and Pete worked Clark's jaw to make the dead man take a bite. There was something...reversed...about a witch using a special apple to bring a hero back to life.

 

Crunch.

 

Clark's eyes blinked open. He turned green. Then he turned his head and vomited on the table. Out came the chunk of apple -- and the poison-green rock. "Guggh," Clark said, coughing hard.

 

The Witch smiled. "All our produce has that effect on people," she said proudly. "It's so bad, even the dead throw up when they eat it."

 

"Great," Pete said weakly, his own stomach a bit queasy.

 

Clark lay back down, still coughing weakly. He blinked and stared up at the people looking down on him. "Bluh," he said.

 

"It's always darkest before the dawn," Miracle Maxim said.

 

Clark blinked and stared at Maxim.

 

"If you've got your health you've got everything." Miracle Maxim beamed and thumped Clark's shoulder.

 

"Uh...Darmok and Gilard at Tenagra?" Clark ventured.

 

"Close enough," Pete said. Tina pulled Clark off the table. "Thanks for the help, sorry about the table, we got a royal wedding to stop and a King to destroy."

 

"At least stay for dinner, we're making apple pies," the Witch said.

 

Seconds later there was only a dust cloud to show where the visitors had been, and the kitchen door swung lazily on the one unbroken hinge.

 

"Bye, you three," the Witch called after them cheerily. "Wear a sweater, the castle's cold."

 

"Luck is when preparation meets opportunity!" boomed Miracle Maxim.

 

"Do you think they can do it?" the Witch muttered to her husband.

 

"Close only counts in horseshoes," Miracle Maxim replied sotto voce before getting out his toolkit to fix the door.

 

***

 

Lex stared at Victoria. For one of the few times in his life, he was poleaxed.

 

"Tonight?"

 

"Midnight," the Princess said. "It will be the next day, technically, and there will be less chance of interference from the King's enemies."

 

"It's for the best, Lex," the King said.

 

"Shouldn't you investigate whatever made that horrible screech in the Thieves' Forest an hour ago?" Lex added, trying to sound casual.

 

"It is investigated, Lex," the King said, and smiled. "It seems your farm boy found out about your wedding. The grief was too much for his heart to take. His cry of pain as his heart broke flattened everything within a mile. I must say, he was an extraordinary lad -- I'm only sorry I couldn't learn more from him before he died."

 

Lex stared at both the King and Victoria. "You're lying," he said. "You wouldn't move the date of the wedding up if you thought he was no threat to the proceedings."

 

"Oh, he's not a threat any more, Lex," Victoria said calmly. "And when we're wed, you won't be a threat either. Not even you would be stupid and ambitious enough to destabilize our kingdoms at such a crucial moment."

 

"You don't want your future subjects to think that you'd turn on your own beloved bride out of rage at the death of your -- paramour," the King added, smiling. "They'd question your ability to rule them without letting your heart interfere with your duty."

 

No. No. This was his father talking, and his faithless fiancée. His ruthless father, who had had Clark surrounded the last time he'd seen him in the Woods of Weird. That cry in the woods had mirrored the sound in his heart when he'd thought Clark dead once before. He would tolerate much from these two, but the one thing he would not tolerate was the death of hope. Clark would come for him, just as he'd climbed the Cliffs of Improbability, defeated powerful henchmen and outwitted the vile Phelan, and walked safely through the Woods of Weird with the Prince. Clark was stronger than he looked.

 

Be strong, and wait for the opportunity.

 

Lex sagged, a little bit. "Midnight."

 

"You've little time to prepare, love," Victoria said. "I'll run us a hot bath."

 

"And I have to see that all preparations around the castle are finalized," the King added, and left the betrothed pair.

 

Once outside, he called to Whitney. "Double the guard around the castle."

 

"Your Majesty, we already have fifty men stationed around the perimeter," the henchman replied.

 

"Then make it a hundred, dolt! I will have nothing interfere with this wedding!" thundered the King, cuffing Whitney for his insolence. "The forest is clear?"

 

Whitney remembered confronting the last holdout in the Thieves' Forest, a harmless lunatic with a briefcase full of papers, and nothing after that. "It is clear, Your Majesty."

 

In the meantime the last holdout from the Thieves' Forest, the last member of the brute squad, and the last person the King wanted to think about were heading toward the castle at a fast clip -- or as fast as two people could head somewhere while carrying a limp torture victim. Clark was back from the dead, but he'd felt better. Tina had no problem carrying Clark, but threatened to kill him again if he asked "Are we there yet?" one more time.

 

Just outside the castle wall, they hid behind a turret. It was nearly midnight. Torches and heavily armed guardsmen filled the courtyard.

 

Pete stared over the wall at the opposition, his arms full of his weapons. "There's at least thirty guys on that door. Should we pick another way to get in?"

 

Clark stared all around the castle. "The other doors and windows are heavily guarded, too. This is the best entry, and the closest to the chapel." He froze. "I can hear the ceremony starting! We have no more time to lose!"

 

"I can take on fifteen of the guards by myself," Tina said. "Can you get the other fifteen?"

 

"I could take on one of them. Maybe," Pete said sourly. "Clark?"

 

"I could take them all on -- in the morning. But I need sunlight to regain my strength. We don't have that time." Clark stared at the guards grimly. "We need a distraction of some kind. Something terrifying, like a horrible thing from the Woods of Weird, or a big fire, or --"

 

Foom. Foom-foom.

 

"Or both of them at once. Hey!" Clark shouted, exultant at his amazingly good luck. "Hey, Coach!"

 

The Fire-Coach, who'd stumbled out of the Woods of Weird to finish off the interlopers who'd escaped his wrath and had ended up at the castle gate just at that very moment, turned to glare at Clark.

 

"Those guys! All those guys!" Clark waved at the startled armed guards who'd heard his voice and were looking around, drawing their weapons. "They're trying to destroy your legacy!"

 

The Fire-Coach glared at Clark. "Do you think I'll fall for that stupid trick AGAIN!!" he roared, and flames shot up all around him, melting down the iron gates, cracking the nearby stone walls, and terrifying the guards into fleeing right and left.

 

"My mistake. Thanks!" Clark called as the three invaders leaped the wall and headed for the doors.

 

Only one guard stood between the three of them and the door. Whitney glared at the invaders. "You won't stop this wedding! Not if I have to die for it!"

 

"We're not here to stop the wedding," Pete said. "We've brought a wedding gift for the royal couple, from some grateful Smallville farmers. Here, have one." He pulled an apple out of his backpack and held it out.

 

"Oh, thank you!" Whitney gratefully took the fruit and took a big bite. He turned green, then white, then tore away from the door in the direction of the outhouses.

 

Pete grinned. "The Witch let me take some apples with me. I figured they'd come in handy."

 

"You bastard," Tina said admiringly, and kicked the doors in.

 

Meanwhile in the royal chapel, everyone could hear, if muffled, the screams of the guards, the roar of fire, and the deep **boom** of the main doors opening wide. The few royal guests, able to appear on short notice for the hasty wedding, looked around and muttered nervously. Victoria, completely oblivious to the showing she made in her original-design wedding gown, kept looking behind her at the chapel doors, in the direction of the noise. The King and Victoria's father didn't look behind them, but their knuckles whitened as they gripped the pew fronts.

 

Lex alone seemed to listen intently as the bishop, flanked by a squad of altar boys, droned the wedding homily with all the enthusiasm of a high school principal announcing the cafeteria menu over the intercom. "Clark is coming, Your Highness," he muttered to the agitated Victoria. "Your plans, and the King's plans, are ashes."

 

"You're lying!" Victoria snapped. The Bishop stopped and glared at both of them, as if he wanted to issue detention to both. "Clark is dead and gone!"

 

"Why is my father upset, then?" Lex murmured. "He only gets this furious when one of his schemes is about to be destroyed."

 

More screams from outside. Pounding feet, heading toward the chapel door.

 

The King stood up. "Bishop, pronounce them married, now!" he shouted. "Now, or it's your head!"

 

"I hereby pronounce you man and wife, the mass is ended go in peace, let's get the hell outta here!" The Bishop took off for the apse of the chapel, followed by the squad of shrieking altar boys.

 

Victoria stood up, beaming from ear to ear. "I am Princess of Central City, Smallville and Metropolis!" she announced to the stunned congregation and the grinning King. To the four guards at the back door she commanded, "Go in my name and kill the invaders!"

 

"Your Highness!" they chorused, and left through the door in the back.

 

To the four guards flanking the wedding party the King commanded, "Take the royal couple to safety at once!"

 

"Your Majesty!" they chorused, and hustled the newlyweds out through a side door in the chapel and down a little-used corridor.

 

 _He didn't come_ Lex thought, stunned at the speed of change.

 

The King headed out the chapel doors after the four guards -- and all five came face to face with the assailants.

 

Pete stared, in the forefront, ahead of Tina carrying Clark. His briefcase was out, and seconds later all four guards were struck down by the unerring flight of four perfectly-served subpoenas.

 

Pete now faced the King alone.  "Hello," he said softly to the petrified monarch. "My name is Peter Ross. You ruined my father. Prepare to be sued."

 

The King stared at Pete for a long moment. Then he turned and fled down a corridor.

 

"No!" Pete shouted, and tore after the king.

 

"Pete!" Clark called after the obsessed legal eagle, and shook his head in despair.

 

"He came here for revenge, not for true love," Tina said, stepping over the subpoenaed guards. "You came here to stop a royal wedding from subverting the course of true love."

 

Clark nodded from Tina's arms, and focused his eyes on the walls of the castle, looking for the silhouette he knew above all others. "There! I see them! That way!"

 

Tina took off down that corridor.

 

The King dashed into the main banquet hall, and his eyes fell on the covered dishes laid out for the wedding guests. He opened one silver tureen and smiled.

 

So that when Pete Ross charged into the room after him, the King flung a ladleful of creamed corn that hit Pete in the face.

 

With a cry of pain, Pete dropped his briefcase and slumped against the wall, gasping for air and clawing at the yellow mess on his face. His legal papers scattered everywhere, useless.

 

***

 

"Oh, I get it! it's like yellow kryptonite!"

 

"Exactly, hon. Just as Clark's old home planet is now fatal to him, creamed corn is Pete Ross' one great vulnerability."

 

***

 

...everywhere, useless.

 

"So!" the King gloated as his adversary sank to the ground, trying to wipe the creamed corn from his face. "You were that little brat who threw cow pies at me while I made your father sign the papers to give me his farm! Do you mean to say that you spent all this time studying law in order to wreak your revenge -- only to be stopped by a handful of mashed vegetable? I don't think I've ever seen anything so sad in my life." The King advanced on the whimpering Pete, one hand reaching to his side. "There's only one thing I can do in a case like this." Up came the King's hand, holding a cell phone bearing the royal seal. "And that's to acquire your law firm and have you disbarred."

 

Pete gasped for breath, blinking the creamed corn out of his eyes to see the King approaching him. The King who had stolen so much from so many, and was so high above the law that he considered himself to be the law. Feebly he groped around him on the floor. His fingers found a paper, then two, then three.

 

And as the King bent down to watch Pete succumb, Pete threw the papers at the King. The King yelped and staggered back, clutching at the massive paper cut across his face.

 

That cry, and that wound, gave Pete strength. He had touched the untouchable! He hoisted himself upright, and groped for another paper. It was a lunch menu for a Chinese restaurant near his father's law office, made of cheap paper with very sharp edges. He flung it at the retreating King, and it cut across the back of the monarch's hand. The royal cell phone dropped to the ground.

 

"Hello, my name is Peter Ross, you ruined my father, prepare to be sued!" Pete called, and stood upright, scorning the creamed corn dripping down his Armani.

 

The King backed away, clutching his paper wounds.

 

So this was how you battled a paper tiger! Pete advanced, growing stronger and angrier as he grabbed more papers. The King ducked behind the banquet table to re-arm himself, but Pete kicked over the tureen of creamed corn. The besieged King was reduced to flinging nut cups and individual tomato aspics at his pursuer, while documents rained down hard and fast in a blitzkrieg of legalese.

 

"Hello my name is Peter Ross you ruined my father prepare to be sued!" Pete roared triumphantly, and frisbee'd a writ of habeas corpus that gashed the King's cheek.

 

"Stop saying that!" the King roared back, finally backed up against the wall.

 

Pete was a hideous sight -- plastered in dripping red and yellow blotches and peppered with fancy salted almonds. But his briefcase was shining leather, untouched by the King's attack, and papers still boiled out of it.

 

Scornfully, Pete flicked one hand at the King, and a ghastly combination of creamed corn and tomato aspic gel spattered his custom-made morning coat. "Say you'll settle out of court, Your Majesty," he retorted. "Promise me you'll agree to a reasonable recompense for the loss of my family business!"

 

"Yes, I promise. Yes, anything!" the King babbled.

 

"Ask me for my terms! Promise me whatever I ask for recompense!" Pete shouted, and flung another handful of aspic-corn goo at the King's suit. "Any reasonable repayment!"

 

"Anything! I will give you whatever you wish!" bleated the King.

 

A second later the King shrieked with pain as the full weight of the lawsuit struck him in the chest. The folder was as thick as two cinder blocks, and weighed about the same. He collapsed to the floor.

 

"I want my family farm restored, you son of a bitch," Pete said quietly. "So do every one of these other twenty people who are suing you simultaneously." And staggered, finally feeling the full effect of the creamed corn. He sank to his knees, opposite the gasping monarch.

 

"You're hurt too, ambulance chaser," snarled the King, glaring with hatred at the weary attorney. "Don't you know I'll destroy you?"

 

Pete laughed painfully. "Do your worst, Your Majesty. Call in a phalanx of your best attorneys. Ruin me financially for generations to come. Buy us all off, if you can.  Have me arrested for Driving While Black.

 

"It doesn't matter, because the publicity from this trial will make your stock drop like a paralyzed falcon, and your name will be a joke on the lips of every investor for months -- long enough for your securities to bottom out. Once the money starts drying up, your employees will leave for greener pastures if you don't let them go first. You might want to start learning a marketable skill, like selling apples."

 

"My allies will --" The King froze. He went stone-faced, but not before a look of horror had appeared in a flash.

 

Pete laughed hard, through his tears of triumph. "Your Majesty -- _what_ allies?  Who will stay at your side when your money is gone? You'll be very, very lucky if your own  son merely disavows and exiles you before assuming the throne."

 

Just then the door burst open and in came a troop of soldiers bristling with armor, their swords out and flashing. "Your Majesty!" the troop-leader called. "I serve the King!"

 

"It's about time you showed up, you fools! I order you to kill him!" the King roared, pointing a finger at Pete.

 

Pete held up his legal briefs. "He's poor now," he said to the guards, pointing to the King.

 

"Sorry, wrong room," the troop-leader said, and the guards left. "Where's the bald one?" The door clanged shut.

 

Pete grinned at the stunned monarch. "The King is dead," he whispered, and sank to the floor toward a well-deserved faint. "Long live the King."

 

_Father, you may conduct law in peace from now on. You are avenged._

 

***

 

The guards hustled the royal couple down the corridor to the deepest, best-guarded, most impregnable portion of the castle.

 

Lex's mind worked fast. He could go along with this sham marriage as long as was needed, until he could summon his resources and go find Clark. He would endure anything thrown at him by his father and his...his wife until the moment he could join his true love and become undefeatable. His people would flock to his side and join him against Victoria when the time was right. Even now he could see Clark standing at his side, eyes shining, saying "You are married, Lex. It wouldn't be right."

 

Lex froze, and stumbled a little.

 

"Careful, Your Highness," a guard said beside Lex, and offered a hand.

 

Lex shook his head and took back his stride. But the blow to his own heart had finally cleaved what hope remained in his breast.

 

Clark would be as bitterly heartbroken as Lex -- but he would not approach the Prince and Princess now that they were wed. His duty was to the now-conjoined empire of Central City and Metropolis, just as Lex's was. Any course of action he took from here -- an affair, a cunningly-executed spousal murder, one-sided annulment, combat -- could cause a war between Metropolis and Smallville. And Clark would despise Lex for it.

 

It was over.

 

"Here, Your Highnesses," the guard said.

 

The labyrinth of tunnels had ended at this small iron door and the small room within. Windowless, boasting only the one door, deep below the ground and inaccessible save through a labyrinth of tunnels, it was surely the safest, most impregnable, most inescapable prison in the kingdom.

 

"We're safe now, Lex," Victoria said sweetly, and took his hand. "Why, you're steady as a rock and cool as a cucumber."

 

Cold as a corpse, Lex mentally corrected his wife. Duty and Intrigue were locked hard around his wrists and ankles, and the chain pulled at his very heart.

 

The guards, after inspecting the room, ushered in the heirs. The room, constructed of massive stone and mortar and wired with spotty fluorescent light, was as cheerless as Lex himself felt inside. It was a war room, clearly; a big oval table stood at the center, surrounded by chairs and microphones. A red telephone stood by the chair embossed with the Royal Seal; a small lead box rested on the table before the head chair as well. Dark screens formed a perfect circle around the room, meant no doubt to display updates on battles or disasters. A few cots lined the far wall, between a small kitchenette and a small bathroom.

 

Victoria pouted. "This is a terrible honeymoon suite," she whined.

 

Lex looked around at the trappings of raw, cold, loveless power. This was a perfect room to symbolize this wedding.

 

"I'll stay here on guard with Their Highnesses," the head guard said, and shook hands with the other three guards. "Stay outside and set up the checkpoints." The other three agreed and filed out of the room.

 

"I'll run us a hot bath, Lex," Victoria said, and entered the bathroom. Seconds later she flounced back out, fuming. "Bloody hell, it's only a shower stall!" she snapped.

 

Lex smiled for the first time in days. "You may have the first shower, my bride." The smile left his face the instant she was back in the bathroom.

 

"Would you like me to fix you and the Princess something to eat, Your Highness?" the guard asked. "It's a poor substitute for a wedding feast, but I can make soup or sandwiches."

 

"Not unless there's a strong poison you can add to my soup," Lex said stonily. "It seems to be the only way out of my prison now."

 

"Why would you say such a thing, Your Highness?" asked the guard. "You are safe, not in a prison."

 

Lex laughed. "I am at the center of a labyrinth, guarded at four junctures, and impregnable by all but those who can pass through and open the one door. And I am wed to Princess Victoria."

 

The guard scratched his chin. "Your Highness, I helped stand guard at the back of the chapel during the ceremony. His Majesty the King ordered the bishop to pronounce you wed, which he did without obtaining consent of both parties."

 

Lex stared at the guardsman. "He did!"

 

"In that case, Your Highness, you are not truly wed yet. Marriage still requires the consent of both parties before it is considered legal and binding, whether one follows the laws of God or of man." The guard shrugged elaborately. "You and the Princess are not married."

 

Lex was so stunned with relief that the sound of the wall being smashed open did not register at first. The dust and noise filled the room and quickly caught the Prince's attention, as well as that of the instantly alert guard and the shrieking Victoria.

 

The wall had been broken open from the outside, near the negotiation table. A figure emerged from the smoking hole. It was Clark. He smiled at Lex from the breach. "Your Highness," he said softly.

 

It was like having all his blood returned to his heart all at once. Lex couldn't take the grin off his face now if his father were in the room. "Hold," he called as the guard ran forward, sword drawn, "this is a friend." He himself stepped forward, beaming. "Clark."

 

But Clark looked behind Lex. "Princess!"

 

It was Victoria, out of the shower, naked and furious, her face contorted with rage. She stood by the royal chair at the table, the lead box in her hands. "Farm-boy!" she shouted. "How many times do I have to kill you!" She flung open the box and dashed the contents at Clark -- a large glowing green rock, bigger than all the other stones put together.

 

 Lex stared in horror at the sickly green stone, only able to watch as it sped toward his true love.

 

Clark caught the rock with one hand and grinned.

 

Victoria stared at Clark, her eyes white-ringed with rage. "That rock should kill you, you bastard!" she screamed. "Do I have to cram it down your throat again?" She lunged forward, her hands out and shaped like claws.

 

 Clark pitched the rock right at Victoria, beaning her in the forehead. Down she went, out cold.

 

"Hold!" Lex shouted, physically stopping the guard from going after Clark.

 

"Your Highness, please put that stone back in the box," Clark said. "It's very poisonous to Clark." And with that, Clark wavered and melted and changed shape to appear as...the strong teen girl who'd helped kidnap him.

 

 Lex blinked. It seemed she was a shape shifter as well as being very strong.

 

 "Clark is here behind me," the teen girl said. "We both thought Her Highness might try this kind of attack if she saw him coming." She bent down to pick up someone lying behind her.

 

Lex nodded, dazed. He fumbled the stone back into the lead box and handed it to his guard. "If the Princess tries to get that box from you," he said, "you have my permission to kill her." Then he stepped toward the breach in the wall, where a weary, pained Clark smiled at him from the girl's arms. "These corridors are tangled like a knot," he said softly. "How did you get through them?"

 

"The same way Alexander the Great solved the Gordian Knot," Clark said. "Did you think that a few corridors would stop me, when both of us have walked through the Woods of Weird and lived to tell the tale?"

 

And then he and the Prince Lex were in each other's arms.

 

Both the guard and the girl looked away for a long time, and pretended not to hear anything for the same amount of time.

 

 "I'm not married," Lex whispered, his forehead pressed to Clark's. "I can be with you, with the only one I truly love."

 

"If the Princess contests the legality of the marriage," Clark replied, "I know a good lawyer who'd be happy to assist you. Even now he is subpoena-ing your father."

 

"Bastards!"

 

Everyone looked over at the enraged Victoria, once again conscious, upright, and enraged. In a flash she darted forward, and snatched out the sword Lex had worn as part of his wedding outfit. Now she was looking at Lex, face contorted with hatred, the blade pointed straight at his heart.

 

"If I can't kill your whore, dear husband," she spat, "I'll kill you! I will rule with or without you! My word will be law! Your father the King will see to that!"

 

Tina strode between Lex and Victoria, Clark glaring at her from the teen's arms. He was far from the sun, far from the strength that would have kept him safe from the blade that was now as fatal to him as to any other man. But he could die to save his love's life.

 

They were not alone. The guard stood between Victoria and her targets as well, and his sword was out. But it was not pointed at the Princess. It was held to her, hilt-first. The guard knelt. "Your Highness, accept my sword in your defense," he said, "and take me as your vassal from this day forward, to defend you against all your enemies." He bowed his head and extended his right hand to her. "Or should I say -- Your Majesty."

 

Betrayed, Lex thought numbly, remembering the small kindnesses of the guard. Proved false. No doubt the man thought he'd be under better protection or be better rewarded as one of Victoria's minions than as a royal guard.

 

Victoria beamed. "Two swords against none. Guardsman, you will be richly rewarded for your loyalty to me when I am Queen." She reached a hand down to his, to accept his quick oath of fealty.

 

The guard took her hand in his, looked up and smiled. "Princess, you and Lex are not truly married," he said. "Lex is the true ruler of his kingdom."

 

"Lex and I are not truly married," she said sweetly, eyes slightly unfocused. "Lex is the true ruler of his kingdom."

 

"The King is your true love, and the source of all your power," the guard said. "Go to the King and join him. Your fates belong together, the King and you."

 

"I will join the King," Victoria agreed happily, eyes vacant. "The source of all my power.  Our fates belong together."

 

"Take the other three guards with you. The crisis is past," said the guard. He let go of the Princess' hand.

 

Victoria walked past everyone in the small room, still smiling vacantly. "The crisis is past. I must join my true love and the source of all my power," she said prettily, and walked out of the door. "I will call off the guards."

 

The guard stood, and with the stupefied Lex, Clark and Tina, watched the Princess walk down the labyrinthine corridor to the first stunned guard on watch. "I should have told her to put some clothes on first," the guard said ruefully.

 

"What is this?" Lex demanded, flabbergasted rather than angry.

 

"Forgive me for the ruse, Your Highness," the guard said. "But it seemed the only way to get the Princess to touch my hand. I am Kyle, better known as the hermit Kyle of the Thieves Forest. I have a -- gift."

 

Tina nodded, shifted to look like Clark, and shifted back. "So do I."

 

Lex looked at his allies, looked back down the corridor. "She and the King will team up once again."

 

"When Pete is done, the King won't have two pennies to rub together," said Clark. "No money and soon no power.  How long will Victoria stay with him then?"

 

Lex smiled, and found he couldn't stop smiling. "Once I have ordered my father exiled, she can join him if she likes. She won't try to make war on me as long as I have enough proof of her treachery with the King to turn Central City against her." He took Clark from Tina's arms. "Then you are quite right, Clark. The crisis is past. I am unmarried, the kingdom is mine, my enemies are deposed, and I am free to be with my true love." He laughed, and his voice had a catch to it. "And not an hour ago, I was sure that I would die of grief."

 

"Nonsense, Your Highness," Clark said, eyes shining. "You're stronger than you look."

 

The four proceeded down the deserted corridors and back to the main part of the castle. Outside the doorway of the banquet hall they found a weary, blotched Pete still trying to clean up the creamed corn spilled on him. "Super, man," he said when he saw Clark and Lex together. "Your Highness, your father just threw some silverware into a bag, shredded some documents, hotwired a royal Porsche and took off for parts unknown. I think I'm safe in saying -- Your Majesty."

 

Lex smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. "He won't get far. I was able at least to contact some of my own operatives. He'll be stopped at whatever border he uses, and detained as a conspirator and a threat to the throne." He looked at the lawyer and at Tina. "For the service you have done me today, you both have a royal pardon for your parts in my kidnapping. Take a commission in the guards, girl, and teach my men a few things about combat."

 

"Great!" Pete said. But a frown crossed his face. "I've spent so much time building my case against the King. Now he's out the door, I have no idea what I'll do."

 

"I do. The Royal Steward of Agriculture," the Prince said. "A man well-versed in both creamed corn and law is just the one to fairly arbitrate land disputes and to mete land out to wronged farmers."

 

Pete beamed.

 

Rumors spread faster than light. By the time Lex and Clark reached the royal chambers, every member of the kingdom present for the wedding knew what had happened, and the roars of "Long Live the King! Long live the King!" preceded them as Lex stepped out onto the balcony to greet his subjects, still holding Clark in his arms.

 

The rising sun touched Clark's face, and he stood, strong and beautiful and alive once again.

 

"My people!" King Alexander called, and they fell silent. "I choose my royal consort from among your own humble ranks, to be one of you in my royal presence! I present to you -- the Prince Clark!"

 

 The roars doubled in volume. "Long live the King! Long live the Prince!"

 

Lex beamed up at the tall, beautiful young man at his side. "Farmboy," he said softly. "My love. My true love. Kiss me."

 

Clark smiled like the rising sun himself. "As you wish," he said, just as softly.

 

***

 

"The End."

 

"Oh, Gramma."

 

"Well, what do you think of Superman now?"

 

"It's...it's great. Thank you."

 

"My pleasure, honey. And now, it looks as though your mom will be back from work any minute, so I'd best get home and feed the cats. You know how Flash and Adam get when their food's late."

 

"Yeah, really. ...Um, Grandma?"

 

"Yes, dear?"

 

"Could you...could you come back next Tuesday night and read me the story again?"

 

Grandma smiled at Emily. "As you wish," she said, and closed the bedroom door.

**Author's Note:**

> This first appeared in the zine _The Big Girls' Book of Smallville Big Boys_ , put out by Oblique Publications in 2003.


End file.
